Week 2: I don't want anybody else, when I think about nanotechnology I touch myself.

My apologies for the title.

In his article Art Is Nature, George Gessert, a bio-artist, describes the work of a number of other artists who use natural processes to create their artwork.  Unlike most art, he suggests that some of these artists are able to make work that is not centered around the human being.  Gessert himself is known for his breeding of hybrid plants; he contends that plant and animal breeding are fine arts.  While I think that just about anything can be art, including plant and animal breeding, he presents work that I find extremely problematic without question.

For instance, he describes Brandon Ballengee's breeding of amphibians, "in an attempt to recreate a species of frog thought to be extinct."  He may then "consider releasing reconstituted curtipes [the frog] back into the wild."  Gessert ends this description saying, "With luck, his art may someday be evolving all on its own in Eastern Zaire, niched into water ecosystems and rippling through them."

The possibility is really quite frightening (did he not see Jurassic Park??).  Biologists have had enough trouble dealing with invasive species, much less species created by humans and introduced into ecosystems that may well react negatively.  Rather than being art that is not centered around humans, this idea of breeding plants and animals is perhaps the most self-centered way of making art possible.  It suggests that we can sufficiently predict the impact of an introduced species on an ecosystem.  How arrogant.  He completely fails to recognize human limitation and the complexity of the natural world.  

This said, I have to recognize that there is a fine line between acceptable and unacceptable human intervention.  For instance, I generally find regulated genetic modification for scientific purposes of animals acceptable, as, I think, do most Americans.  I believe that the knowledge gained by such experimentation outweighs potential moral hazards.  Gessert describes the work of Eduardo Kac, who manipulated a rabbit's genes so that it fluoresced and then put it on display in an art gallery.  While it seems that care was taken to make sure the animal was healthy and happy, this act of art is somewhat disturbing.  Where is the line?  We manipulate organisms to gain scientific and medical knowledge, to create hypo-allergenic pets, and to grow drought-resistant crops.  Is genetic manipulation for aesthetic, artistic, or entertainment value ethical?

Instead of trying to create non-human-centered art by exploiting the natural world, perhaps we can look to the natural world to make its own art.  Generally, we believe that art is specific to humans.  Perhaps though, the drive to make art is simply an extension of an urge that existed long before we learned to control paint, film, and clay.  This video and the one below are about bower birds, which are known for their collecting and nest decoration.  They use these decorations to attract mates; are humans really any different?   

Also, check out Herbert Duprat's caddis worm sculptures.  He removes caddis fly larvae from their natural habitat and, by providing them with precious materials, prompts them to manufacture new cases. 

Evelyn Fox Keller's article The biological gaze asserts that oftentimes the act of observing something at a very small scale requires it that it be manipulated.  She describes processes in which biologists have isolated and manipulated DNA in order to observe it, fundamentally altering the thing observed.  We dye, slice, and freeze in order to observe.  Some things we simply can't observe as they exist in the world.  

Ultimately, we rely on our relatively meager senses to help us determine what reality is.  Where our natural senses fail (i.e. looking at tiny or very far away things), we seek assistance from microscopes, telescopes, x-rays, and MRIs.  These allow us to see what would be invisible to the naked eye, but they transform the world in the process.  Our ability to determine what is real is quite limited.  It wasn't so long ago that people thought the world was flat.  How many horizons can we still not see past?  How many horizons do we not even realize are there?